Two-time Oscar nominee Peter Fonda, who became a Hollywood icon thanks to his starring role in Easy Rider and his embrace of 1960s counter-culture, has died at age 79 due to complications arising from lung cancer, Variety reports.
The actor was the only son of The Grapes of Wrath and 12 Angry Men star Peter Fonda and socialite Frances Ford Seymour, and was the younger brother of actress-turned-political activist Jane Fonda. Following a number of well-received appearances on Broadway and television, Peter Fonda made his silver screen debut in the 1963 romantic comedy Tammy and the Doctor and quickly became known as a talented, if unconventional, actor.
However, Fonda’s big break didn’t come until a few years later, when he produced, co-wrote, and starred in Dennis Hopper’s highly influential 1969 drama Easy Rider. As Wyatt, a drug-smuggling drifter who rode on a star-spangled motorcycle known as “Captain America,” Fonda helped bring the simmering tensions of late-’60s American culture to the big screen.
Easy Rider shocked audiences with its frank depictions of drug use, free love, and violence, and went on to become the third-highest grossing movie of 1969. Easy Rider is credited with helping launch the “New Hollywood” era, in which major studios shied away from the Golden Age filmmaking-model in favor of low-budget, realistic movies aimed at younger audiences, while its soundtrack made bands like The Band, The Byrds, and Steppenwolf into household names.
Fonda wasn’t just a rebel on-screen, however. During the ’60s, he was friends with The Beatles, used LSD regularly, and occasionally ran into trouble with the police. Before Easy Rider catapulted Fonda to superstardom, he regularly appeared in films by B-movie master Roger Corman. Later, Fonda starred in Hopper’s drug-fueled The Last Movie and directed Wanda Nevada, which garnered controversy for a romance plot between the 39-year-old Fonda and 13-year-old Brooke Shields.
In the ’70s and ’80s, Fonda became an action star, playing leading roles in Open Season, the Westworld sequel Futureworld, and The Cannonball Run. In 1997, Fonda was nominated for Best Actor for Ulee’s Gold. Fonda continued working right up until his death — his last movie, Skate God, has yet to be released.
In his personal life, Fonda was an outspoken liberal who had harsh words for American Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, and who helped produce a scathing documentary about the Deepwater Horizon oil spill called The Big Fix. Fonda is survived by his wife Margaret DeVogelaere and his two children, Justin and Bridget Fonda, the latter of whom is a notable actress in her own right.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.